Breana Hargrave, center, represents Lead 716 during a February news conference at Niagara Square in Buffalo. Hargrave was exposed to lead in 1998, and works with Lead 716 to prevent lead exposure for children today.
Buffalo lawmakers recently doubled the rental registry fees paid by landlords to raise funds for more lead paint inspections in rental properties.
The rental registry fees are now set at $50 for single-family dwellings, up from $25, and $100 for two-family homes, up from $50.
The Council approved the fee increase last week to help fund its Proactive Rental Inspections program, which sends building inspectors into non-owner occupied one- and two-family rental units to check for lead paint hazards and more.
“I personally don’t think (it) is too excessive for the level of inspection that takes place or quite frankly the amount of rent that some of these are charging. I don’t think it’s that much money,” Council President Christopher P. Scanlon said.
The rental registry, an ordinance the Council approved in November 2020, is a database for all non-owner occupied one- and two- family rental dwellings in the city. The data collected includes the name and address of the owner and telephone numbers where the owner, or an agent for the owner, can be reached at all times. Registration is renewable annually.
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The move to increase the registry fees followed criticism from local community groups earlier this year – including the think tank Partnership for the Public Good – that appealed to the city to inspect far more rental properties for toxic lead paint, as required by its PRI local law. Inspectors also check for infestation, safe exits, smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, leaking pipes and more.
Catherine Amdur, commissioner of the city’s Department of Permits and Inspection Services, said last month the PRI program was unsustainable. Funding is a problem, and the inspections are more time-consuming than expected, she said.
Amdur recommended to Council members that they should revise the ordinances that established the inspection program in 2020.
When the PRI local law was established in 2020, the department became responsible for performing interior and exterior inspections on an additional 36,000 rental units every three years at an anticipated cost of $2.1 million per year.
But unlike other municipalities, such as Rochester, Buffalo’s PRI legislation did not include fees for landlords to cover the cost of the inspections, city officials said.
Buffalo’s program now relies on $1 million in American Rescue Plan funding, which will be exhausted by the end of 2026.
Prior to the increases, the rental registry fees generated about $1 million per year, Amdur said.
Doubling the fees will help pay for an estimated 20 additional inspectors to do the job, said Amdur, who was appointed commissioner after the PRI program was created.
Every year, thousands of children under the age of 6 are diagnosed with elevated blood lead levels in Erie County. Thousands more are exposed to lead hazards in their homes every day.
Since at least the early 1990s, Buffalo has ranked among the nation’s worst cities for childhood lead poisoning – a function of its aging housing stock and concentrated, segregated poverty.
The Erie County Health Department designated nine ZIP codes in the city as communities of concern because of elevated childhood lead poisoning.
Lead has been banned from paint since 1978, but it remains among the most common environmental toxins for young children.
Even at small doses it can cause serious health effects in children, including lower IQ levels and learning and behavior problems. In adults, lead exposure is linked to heart disease, high blood pressure and kidney and nervous system problems.
